The diocese covers four districts: Sagar, Raisen, Vidisha and Guna of Madhya Pradesh. Sagar district is the third largest in the Jabalpur revenue division. The district has a total area of 10,252 square kilometers and a population of 2,021,783.

Sagar lies in the north central region of Madhya Pradesh. The origin of the name comes from the Hindi word sagar - meaning lake or sea, apparently because of the large and once beautiful lake around which the town built.

Population

District Sagar is predominantly a Scheduled Caste/Backward class district. These together form about 75% of the district. The district has sizable population of Rajjgond tribals. Majority of the population are Hindus followed by Muslims, Sikhs, Jains and Christians.

Language

Hindi is the main language of the people, while Bundelkhandi is the local dialect. Besides, Urdu, Marathi, Gujarathi is also spoken and understood by a considerable percentage of the people.

History

The Catholic Exarchate of Sagar was created in 1968 by bifurcating parts from the dioceses of Bhopal, Ajmer and Jaipur. It became a diocese in 1977. Msgr. Clemens Thottungal, CMI was its first bishop. Msgr. Joseph Pastor Neelankavil, CMI then succeeded him. Msgr. Anthony Chirayath is the present bishop, who is also the first diocesan priest of the diocese. He became bishop on March 25, 2006, Feast of the Annunciation.

Metropolitan: Archdiocese of Bhopal

Patron of the Diocese: St. Therese of Lisieux

Transportation

The district is well accessible by rail. Sagar is 76 kilometers from Bina which is on the Bombay Delhi main line. The district is traversed by first class roads and Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh, is about 208 kilometers from Sagar by road.

Climate

The climatic condition of the district is semi arid. The maximum temperature goes upto 48.2 degrees Celsius during summer in the month of May and the minimum temperature goes down to 2.0 degrees Celsius during winter in the month of January. The winter season starts from November and continues till the middle of March. January is the coolest month with an average daily maximum temperature of 24 degrees Celsius and an average daily minimum of 6 degrees Celsius. Summer starts from the end of March. May is the hottest month of summer and the maximum temperature goes up to 48.2 degrees Celsius with a minimum of 22 degrees Celsius.

Monsoon usually starts from the end of June and continues till the end of September. The average annual rainfall based on the last 10-year IMD data, was observed to be 1,145 mm.